


Long Live The New Flesh

by ActuallyMothman42



Category: New Mutants (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, apocalypse jono for timeline, for now it's in a roadtrip from hell, new mutants crew will be showing up soon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:34:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29545221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ActuallyMothman42/pseuds/ActuallyMothman42
Summary: Something has gone very, very wrong somewhere with the attempted resurrection of Doug Ramsey. Instead of another loyal undead soldier, there's now a confused flesh-metal zombie with a hunger for assimilation on the run, destination unknown. Because life will never let Jono Starsmore catch a break, Doug's landed right in his lap.But monsters have to stick together, don't they?
Relationships: Douglas Ramsey/Jono Starsmore, Douglas Ramsey/Warlock (New Mutants)
Kudos: 7





	1. Rude Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> Or in which I've made an alternative resurrection au, the urge kicked off by the Copernican Revolt by goldenthreads. Going for the vibes of an 80s b-horror movie

Preface

_The moonlight gave a pleasantly ominous lighting to the deed, as a simple henchman discovered how digging up a grave was much easier said than done in the hardened northeastern soil. He wasn't one to argue or complain, out of terror. Terror certainly kept him close, he was a simple fringe mutant, on the outskirts of the Hellfire club in its heyday. Some men just couldn't help but play with fire, so of course he joined in with Selene when she was on the radar again. He'd offered ins and outs, though with the angle things had taken he was unsure how long he'd stay alive with just simple politics to be offering. He wasn't here for murder, but that's exactly what he landed in. At least he was only being asked to dig up a dead sixteen year old and forcefully resurrect him to make him an undead slave. That he could handle instead of a gun, which lacked elegance. Here, though he wheezed with a tight chest, he was doing a true act of supervillainy. At last, he struck the casket. With the last of his waning strength, he struggled yet eventually succeeded in prying it open._

_Now all that was left was to inject the virus. It made him nervous for sure, with what little he knew about its danger. He didn't know more, as he knew not to ask questions that would only give upsetting answers. Ignorance truly was bliss. Except now, as he wasn't sure exactly how a corpse was supposed to revive. Was it supposed to be writhing around that much? He'd seen a few zombie movies, they didn't jerk and look like a war was occurring beneath the surface of the skin. Plain disgusting, so he turned away. Until a stillness fell upon the scene and that was suddenly even more alarming than a zombie having a seizure. Peering over the casket, he had all of five seconds to register something erupting from the chest cavity before it devoured him whole._

_Doug Ramsey crawled out from his own grave, weak and confused. His mind was still coming back online, not one of a mutant or a Technarch, but rather a fusion of meat and the techno-organic. His body reflected that, the acquired flesh giving him a growth spurt for his adult mind to be matched with an adult body, a body that was a sausage casing for something shifting and hungry. Something had gone very, very wrong somewhere._

* * *

Jono Starsmore was trying his damndest to stay awake, sorely missing the caffeine provided by black coffee he'd declined. He didn't want to be in that place he'd gotten the pickup truck at anymore than the guy wanted him to be there. Funny how still he was naturally unwelcome. It was as if he'd traded off his position in the freakshow for one at the circus. From a living furnace for a chest and no lower jaw to looking like a smaller version of Apocalypse, it got even more stares than just being bundled up. He couldn't hide this with just his wrappings. At least he'd finally gotten a car, sure it was used and god knew the real mileage as the man was surely lying, but it was much better than the bloody bus. Just had to avoid getting pulled over for police to realize he lacked a license. He'd gotten one in England once upon a time, and in his mind it couldn't be that difficult to step back behind the wheel and abide by American traffic laws. Like riding a bicycle. However he'd quickly realized that driving a 1,200 kilogram hunk of metal speeding at 80 kilometers per hour was far different than a bicycle. A bicycle wouldn't kill a man if you ran him over. Probably. Jono wouldn't have known. But he was about to know the sensation of running over a man as a figure darted out in the darkened road and was swiftly run down by the pickup truck, for all his wild swerving.

Screeching to a halt, Jono took a moment to bang his head on the steering wheel and silently curse his luck before looking at the damage. To his relief, the man wasn't dead. To his horror, he should have been.

The new roadkill was slowly getting to his feet like a baby deer, head lolling from the obviously broken neck. Skin was sloughing from the left shoulder and neck, really from the entire left side that had taken the brunt of the pickup truck. Though not as visible as the finger falling off one hand, the dark blood stains and greasy streamlets running out from under that ill-fitting battered suit were a sure sign of the damage. Although that certainly was a horror show of its own, worse yet was revealed from beneath shed skin. Writhing black coils, not quite solid yet not quite liquid, trying their best to rescue some of the flesh that wasn't sliding off in clumps. The blonde zombie was trying to realign his head as the black mass squirted blood and tried to stuff back in flesh, but the efforts were in vain. Some vital support within was obviously now too broken to be fixed, so he just glared in indignation at the frozen Jono.

Jono was paralyzed by fear and growing need to vomit. He suppressed that urge, while it was a free expression he now had with the joy of an actual mouth and jaw, the act would only add to the disaster zone that was still unfolding. As the zombie tried to wobble away, his voice came back to him in the most natural form: snarking. "Are you really trying to walk that off, mate?"

Biohazard turned and rapidly signed at him, anger evident. The signage was sloppy and already confusing given the missing digits- and was already incomprehensible to Jono who woefully barely knew how to fingerspell.

"Wot?"

The zombie gave up and instead gave a universal hand signal of the middle finger.

"Right."

On one hand, this was obviously more trouble than it was worth. On the other, this situation was admittedly his fault given that he was the one who hit them with a car. So, after a long inhale, Jono spoke out. "You need a ride, Romero?" Romero seemed a fitting name if any, and he wasn't providing any other from the torn vocal cords. In response Romero shook his head and tried to keep walking before his leg buckled and he nearly face-planted onto the road. He appeared to have enough of a working brain to see the problem, and with obvious reluctance and suspicion, turned to Jono with a nod.

"Alright. Get in-" Before it was too late, Jono remembered the guitar occupying the passenger seat. Quickly he ran to it before Romero could get in and bleed all over the case. Stuffing it into the compartment behind the seats best he could, he turned to the shuffling zombie. "Don't get too much blood on the seat." The vindictive glare made it clear that he would make damn sure to bleed all over the car he'd been struck with. Great. And to think Jono had only been worried about police discovering he didn't have a license if he got pulled over.

The drive was every bit as awkward as Jono had expected it to be. The upside to being a pessimist was that with a mutant's luck, he was often right. Romero didn't speak or breathe, but the shifting innards made a thoroughly unpleasant noise, of pork belly sliding across a metal bar. Turning on the radio, to Jono's disappointment he had very few choices. Between a local pastor's station and NPR, he settled for the loudest, modern pop. The blaring of Britney Spears to drown out the zombie's unnatural functions added an all the more surreal feeling to the drive. He couldn't help but bark out a laugh, which got a puzzled glare from his passenger.

His grip on the steering wheel was tight, as he also tried to get a grip of himself. He'd seen similar horror to the one next to him, Paige shed her skin all the time. But she didn't exactly have the quality of a gusher beneath the sloughing skin. Still, that wasn't what truly set Jono on edge. It was the constant unblinking surveillance from Romero, as he analyzed data from some unknown source. Jono was used to not being in the know, but that didn't mean he had to like it. The look he was getting wasn't the milky stare of a zombie either, not one with nothing behind the eyes. No, he'd seen the same look in a zoo, watching a tiger pace around its enclosure.

The look and tension witnessed there was the same posture and stare in Romero: A predator's awareness. It was ill-fitting with the zombie's general look, he was a roadkill Bambi. He had a delicate build and wavy blonde hair that would have shone if you gave him a shower. And those eyes, those dewy wide eyes that saw everything. A deer in headlights one may say, but more accurately, that of a horror flick chick turning to see the face of her imminent death as the camera zooms in on her scream.

* * *

At last, the drive had ended with destination reached: some shithole motel he'd been bunkering down at. The Sunset Strip, whatever that meant. Some God, whoever had it out for him, had decided to give him a break this time as there were no witnesses to see him escorting a corpse to his room. Romero seemed to have a rabbit's nerves out in the open, analyzing threats unseen to Jono before he was whisked inside.

Jono pointed to the bathroom. "Look, I don't want you bleeding on the sheets. Go sit in there while I figure out what to do with you." Pondering for a minute, he decided the best course of action was to grab some kind of medical supplies. He'd gotten money from the guy who gave him the pickup, in fact paid to take it off their hands. A bad sign that he may be arrested for a murder he didn't commit, but that was a problem for the future. Right now, he had a zombie to take care of.

Romero had the bathroom door wide open and was still monitoring Jono's every move with unblinking eyes. As he opened his mouth to address the walking corpse, the skin of the left hand finally gave way and fell to the floor. Jono's mouth snapped shut as he grimaced, before getting back on track.

"I'll be back, I'm going to get something to clean you up. Don't go anywhere." The glare shot back clearly said that he couldn't go anywhere even if he wanted to. Jono was a bastard, so he acknowledged it. "Don't let your leg fall off."

Back outside in the parking lot, the street lamp began to flicker on as the sun faded in the horizon. As he walked across it to a nearby store, unfortunately there was now a witness. Some biker, waiting around for his gang. The one who showed up too early. What was he, the rebel teacher's pet?

He called out to Jono in a rough and sneering voice. "Hey, you a mutie?"

Jono replied in a voice dripping with even more hatred and vitriol than that which was launched at him. "Are you a wanker?"

He stalked off from the encounter before his smart-mouth started another fight he didn't need, and went into the dollar tree. There, he started picking up an armful of bandages. Maybe he could be wrapped up like a mummy, good a plan as any. What else was he going to do, superglue his fingers back on? He paused, seriously considering it for a minute. No, probably wouldn't work. Probably? Who knew how that goopy physiology worked. He had a good feeling he didn't want to know.

Before heading to the counter, he paused, and picked up a hoodie. Romero was dressed in the clothes he'd been buried in, and they were falling apart at the seams. Roughly guessing, Jono picked up jeans as well. He didn't owe him anything, Jono didn't care, it was just… common decency. "Just common decency" he muttered to himself as he trudged back through the parking lot. A cold chill ran down his spine as he got closer to his room. Somebody had forced entry, and the door was swung wide open.

The obvious culprit, the biker, was nowhere in sight but his motorcycle was still there. Well shit. Dropping the bags, he realized even more urgently: Romero. If the zombie had any brains, he could have laid low and hid in that bathroom, lest the guy fuck him up even worse. Shit, could he die? Would a headshot do him in? Was cinema accurate? He hadn't seen a gun on the guy but he hadn't been looking. More urgently, Jono needed to worry for himself. If there was a gun in the equation, the Apocalypse muscles wouldn't be much use. But if he could catch him off guard….

Wildly charging in, ready to rugby tackle the biker to the ground, Jono found nobody there and nothing to stop his motion until he slammed into the wall. Looking around, there was nobody in the room.. but there were signs of a struggle.. and a dropped gun. Oh fuck. The bathroom door was wide open, and a trail of blood led into it.

Whatever he had been preparing himself to see, the preparation was not nearly enough. Most recognizable, hanging halfway out of the tub was the mutilated body of the biker. Jono's mind tried to protect him by blurring what he was witnessing. In the tub, something organic was lurking. Despite the little voice in the back of his mind, he kept looking, and now he could see.

Oh god, now he could see. Adrenaline kicked in and every hair on the back of his neck stood up as the urge to vomit rose. He wanted to scream but his lips felt glued together and he could only look in horror. The biker was being… digested. That was certainly one word for what was happening. Processed. Broken down. By means that should have been restrained to only happening inside the human body.

The noises coming from it were hideous, the slurping of gristle through a straw. What was eating it was something amorphous and raw, the full form of that writhing, grotesque thing he'd witnessed beneath Romero's skin. Shiny with blood, a biological metal that was absorbing the corpse in one half of the tub and creating in the other. Flesh slithered and knotted; tangled and pulsated; as the body of Romero was being rebuilt from the flesh of the biker.

The reformed head lazily blinked at the horrified Jono, and spoke. "You really ought to thank me, given that he was waiting around to kill you."


	2. Dog Eat Dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Doug has been having a rough time, and Jono really didn't ask for this

Roadkill Bambi's real name was Doug Ramsey, and the art of being a b-horror monster was all quite new to him. Disturbingly, the assimilation process came naturally as breathing, with minimal thought required. Just the necessary feedback to what parts went where in the body being built. Sure, he didn't  _ need _ internal organs, but he had the material to spare and it felt right to him. It was some type of normalcy, in an extremely wrong way.

Eventually, all was said and done, and he felt strangely refreshed. As if he'd taken a nice and long hot shower. 

Speaking of showers… it was only considerate to turn that on and wash away the blood, wasn't it? Or attempt to, as he found some stains leftover from the…. process too stubborn to remove. The maid service was surely familiar with this sort of thing, he tried to reassure himself. This wouldn't be too difficult.

Walking back out, to his surprise, Apocalypse Lite was still there. He was just sitting on the bed with his head in his hands. 

  
  


Once Doug had awoken, his former language powers had graduated into their full potential: everything was language, and everything could be deciphered. He'd gained an even deeper understanding of body language, everyone had their own unique language that he could learn. Of course, he didn't want to stick around long enough to learn it fully. That wouldn't be safe in his current state. 

The constant overload of information should have short-circuited his brain, but he was different now. Something was wrong with his brain, though that was hardly as worrying as what was wrong with the rest of him. 

The blue man's language screamed of revulsion, as it had the whole time Doug has been here beside him. But there was something he hadn't quite unlocked yet, why the man still stood his ground instead of fleeing, like he obviously wanted to. Out of his natural curiosity, or the natural urge to stick his nose where it didn't belong, Doug wanted to know. Maybe he should just ask.

"You're still here?" 

The man looked up slowly, unsure of what to expect. He looked swiftly downward again, as Doug did now realize he was rather naked. Whoops. 

In that rough voice, muffled by his hands, Apocalypse Lite muttered "I paid for the night, of course I'm still here." Averting his eyes, he blindly threw some clothes to Doug which wildly missed their target. "Here. I don't need you running around bare-arsed." 

Noted. 

  
  


Pulling on the new clothes, they didn't exactly fit. But they fit better than those he was buried in, and that's what mattered. They didn't hold stains from decomposition. This was a fresh start, he had reformed entirely. He was a Ship of Theseus, and yet… he felt gravedirt beneath his fingernails. It was a phantom stain on his very being, the lingering sensation of where he'd been laid down and escaped. Deep in the matter that now replaced his bones, he knew he would never truly escape it. But that didn't mean he couldn't try to run. 

No longer in the nude, he cleared his throat. "Decent." 

His donor looked up slowly, a shell-shock in his eyes. Lacking anything else to say, he just faintly said "Right. Let's get dinner." 

He must have wanted to regain control. Sure it seemed as useful as running in quicksand, but he was sure going for it. Doug had to oblige just for the courage to try for food after what he'd walked into. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


As it turned out, he lacked the stomach to try putting anything solid in, just getting water. Doug ordered a burger, getting a funny look from Apocalypse Lite. "Didn't you.. just eat?"

"That didn't count." 

He opened his mouth to question, but then promptly shut it, realizing he didn't want to know. The blue man had a strange language with his mouth, how he expressed, how it moved. It was if he was unused to it, a puppet loosely strung. He supposed the whole look was hardly natural in the first place, he didn't look at home in it. The language Doug was learning contradicted his body, the body was an awkward costume. He could relate to that, looking into red eyes like his own. Red eyes that seemed dull and lifeless on the surface, yet didn't miss a thing. 

"Romero-"

"Actually, it's Doug." 

The man blinked in annoyance at being cut off, but started again. "I'm Jono, and you're not my problem." 

"I don't want to be your problem." Doug grumbled back, inner fury rising. 

"What about being the x-men's problem? Not sure what kind of mutant you are but-" 

"NO!" Doug's fist slammed down on the table as his voice rang out, sharp and alarmed. It wasn't out of anger, but of fear. He didn't want to be anywhere near the New Mutants, when he was an old nightmare lurching back to life. Old dreams of devouring his friends and fighting Warlock, the technarch virus consuming him and making him a monster. Now he was that monster, he wasn't the right Doug that had returned. They didn't need a figment of their past terrorizing them. A hungry figment, an empty one. 

Jono hadn't flinched at his outburst, but there was a ripple of surprise. "No? Can't blame you." 

Doug leaned in conspiratorially, eyes darting. "When a dog tastes blood, there's no going back. If they find me, they'll have to put me down." 

"See, you're not a dog though."

"That's not the point!" 

Now it was Jono's turn to smack his hand on the table, a frustration rising. "No it's exactly the bloody point. You're not a dog, that was disgusting, but it was self defense- I think." He pinched the bridge of his nose, positive thinking seemed to be taking effort for him. 

"Smash bigots every chance you get, right mate? You need some help, even if not from those bloody x-men." 

  
  


How was Doug supposed to explain that while he needed help, he didn't want it? He was running from the inevitable, he was running to oblivion. This wasn't sustainable, and god, he didn't want it to be. When they'd resurrected him, they'd taken the hero's death he'd had, rendered it null and void. All he served now was to be a blemish on that, ruining the image of who he once was, replacing it with a shambling, carnivorous thing. What kind of second chance was this? He'd been stolen from the finality of the grave, an eternal peace, an afterlife he could no longer remember. Dead was supposed to remain dead, not whatever hell this was. Give him oblivion again, quietly, without anymore fuss. Let his memory live on, untarnished. 

  
  


"No. All the help I need is how to die."

Jono sucked in a breath, face becoming a mask. Something had struck a chord, the idea of death perhaps, a wanted release.

"Bit contradictory there, innit?"

"I just don't want to be killed by the x-men." 

"Get that, I wouldn't want Cyclops signing my death warrant either. Man's a prick." 

Whatever hand Jono had been slowly reaching out, it was now drawing back. Self preservation instincts must be kicking in, he had to be a turtle drawing back into its shell. Doug already represented a danger, and now he was too much. That's what he could read from the closed off language, it was still foreign to him but he could take a hint. He was a monstrous liability, no need for anymore effort to be put in. The body in the tub was already enough to chase off anyone sane. Since he didn't flee the scene then, this was what would chase off the insane. 

  
  


The two sat in silence as Doug finished off the burger that had been delivered by a fearful waitress. It was then he slowly rose. 

"This is it?" 

Jono shrugged, defeated. "Don't suppose you have anything to pay back with, so go on your way."

True enough, it wasn't as if he'd been buried with pocket change. There was a silent reluctance from them both as they detached, two strangers passing in the night. Once upon a time, there could have been a possibility. Now they were both only waiting around to die. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


The journey to nowhere Doug was on provided an odd sort of contentment. He'd just been wandering, wandering and wandering, lost in a world that no longer allowed him. A new perspective, especially when he'd walked the streets of his old hometown. He lurked in the shadows among the strange things he'd never noticed. Never noticed and stayed far away from, on instinct. That was over. 

Of course he wanted to visit his mother. He wanted to bury himself in her arms and cry, hope for acceptance he'd been too scared to ask for before it all. But it was no good now, he wasn't welcome. She didn't need the trauma of her son's body walking through the door. So he stayed away and had kept walking. 

  
  


Doug was a good distance from it all now, but he walked on the wild side, through broken streets with broken people. Picking a general direction, and just went whatever way the wind blew. Just as long as it didn't blow him to anywhere he knew. That strategy was serving him well enough, so continue it he did as he wandered from the diner. 

He took the darker roads as he wandered out to the edges of the towns, alongside the roads he took better care. Given his recent accident, now it was clear that wouldn't kill him. Maybe if he threw himself in front of a real truck, but he'd have to get to a faster highway to be reduced to the proper smear. There was the nagging thought that he still might be alive, a true 'I have no mouth and I must scream' scenario. It could always be worse, he supposed. At least he could scream as much as he wanted to. 

God he wanted to scream, to voice the hunger inside him, the need to consume, to fill an emptiness. This wasn't him, it couldn't be him. In the life previous, he was weak, powerless, unable to save himself. Now here he was, with the strength he'd always craved. But now that he had it, he was craving something else, he ached with the desire to  _ feed _ . Strange thoughts raced in his head, his understanding of the world's languages twisting into a different analysis. 

  
  
  


The danger of thinking that "it could always be worse" is that it often summoned worse things. That statement rang true, when Doug found himself no longer alone. Someone was following him, he heard it in the rhythm of the foliage alongside the road as something moved through them and crushed them underneath. He tensed and rounded on whoever was there, just in time for a bolt of electricity to strike him and send him tumbling backwards into the road. 

On his feet quickly, he backed away from the new threat that stalked out from the treeline. The man had on a Hellion uniform, but Doug hadn't the faintest idea who he was. Out of the loop, given that he'd been dead for eight years. What he did recognize was the virus keeping them upright. It was the same one that had melded and mutated inside him. 

"Douglas Aaron Ramsey… I've come for you." 

He stalked forward, monologue continuing to the uninterested Doug, who was only interested in scrambling away. 

"It's time to be reprogrammed, and join under the Black Queen. You may have escaped once, but not again…" 

Clearly he was stalling for time, stalling for backup, or he would have done something by now. Doug wasn't going to wait around for the rest of the Hellions. Taking off at a dead sprint, it was a useless endeavor. He found himself paralyzed by an intense pain as that electricity ran through him at a much higher voltage. His innards- whatever they were- boiled and curdled as he tried to get himself together, he had to get up, he had to get away. He had to  _ live. _

The Hellion casually strolled over, smug as could be. "I've heard about you, Doug Ramsey. The weakest of the new mutants. Well there's nowhere to run, and nobody to save you this ti-" 

Doug looked up to see a pickup hit the man dead-on, sending the undead flying. The side door was kicked open, revealing his hero: A thoroughly rattled Jono, growling "Get in."

He didn't need to ask him twice, he jumped in just as Jono gunned the engine and sped off, leaving the hellion in the dust. 

  
  
  


Once the boiling had stopped, Doug looked up to the tense blue man. "Why… why did you come looking for me?" 

Jono shrugged. "Us monsters have to stick together, don't we? Don't push it. I can still leave you on the side of the road." 

Reading his language, it was clear that kicking him out of the vehicle wasn't an option he seriously considered. In that language, he saw a mirror. He saw another lonely monster, unfamiliar in their skin. Sure he was waiting around to die, but maybe.. just maybe… Doug didn't have to do it alone. 


End file.
